Is There The Pressure to Enjoy The Summer Holidays With Kids?

I’m two weeks into my first proper summer holidays with the gremlin. If anyone has been keeping updated recently, you will know one of those weeks was meant to be in Spain with friends. This was sadly cancelled and we have been making the most of our staycation, but that’s another post.

The holidays so far have been going pretty well. It’s been great having hubby home, we’ve had some days out, seen friends and even when we both have work again, the gremlin has plenty to keep her busy with family and friends and I’m always off two days a week with her and her sister.

I like that balance. I’ll freely admit I was glad I wasn’t having a full 6 weeks at home with both girls. I salute stay at home parents completely. I don’t think that feeling is just one way either; after 6 weeks of constant company, exhausting all potentials of what to do and basically waiting for school to start again, I reckon the kids are fed up too. I always remember the staff in my local toy shop saying they hated the final weeks of the school holidays. Kids were bored, parents were past caring and the shop ended up getting trashed. It was used as a source of entertainment in the final days off. Not good I know!

I’m very lucky and I know it. Working part time and having supportive friends and family and local events, means the gremlin’s summer is really varied and I won’t have to worry about us getting on each other’s nerves too much.

Despite all this don’t you just feel that pressure to enjoy the summer with your kids?! That 18 summers crappy meme didn’t help; the one telling you that you only had 18 summers with your kids, so you better make the most of them. Even though I ignored that load of rubbish, I still feel that pressure. I feel bad waiting for bedtime after a long day. I feel bad when the TV has been on for longer than an hour before tea. I do see a lot of posts that come out in the blogging world about the desperation of the summer holidays; how hard they are and how school is such a welcome relief. And believe me I can definitely relate to some of it but the thing is, I don’t want to.

I don’t really want to wish the time away. It is hard work with the two of them; with Piglet being smaller and the having different needs but they are only small once. My gremlin is my shadow, my little mate, always asking for Mummy-daughter days and always wanting to be with me. I do feel pressured to lap this all up but it’s bloody hard! Even when I get 15 minutes before the bath when hubby is supposedly meant to take over, I hear the pounding of her feet up the stairs and she’s bouncing into the bedroom.

The girls are starting to become good mates and play together but playing = bickering and when the gremlin gets bored, she becomes the biggest wind up merchant ever and her sister bears the brunt of this. This can be very tiresome, especially if we are in all day.

It’s flipping hard keeping them busy all the time and I only have to do it 4 days a week, unless off. Things cost, summer camps cost, meals out cost and a 99 cone isn’t what it was when I was a kid! I know we need to let them be bored and entertain themselves but at their young age, together they need a little help with it.

So I’m trying to let it wash over me a bit. A bit of a lazy, TV morning? So what? Breakfast in front of the telly? Amazing. Not going out daily isn’t that much of an issue really.

These holidays will be over in 4 weeks. In a kid’s mind that’s forever but for us it’s nothing. I’m not going to worry about having a crappy day and wanting to throw my girls into the garage for a day and I’m going to make memories on the good days.

I think that’s what parenting is all about.